Richard Westgarth Biography

After serving as the Chair of the MarRI-UK Technical Working Group for five years, Richard Westgarth has decided to take a Strategic Advisor role for MarRI-UK following his retirement from BMT.

While at BMT, Richard was responsible for industrial engagement at BMT. His role was to operate across the Organisation, looking at medium to long term trends. This embraced emergent and disruptive technologies including autonomous systems, Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital transformation, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR).

Richard has over 40 years of experience in the defence and maritime sectors as an innovation strategist and business adviser. His wealth of experience in naval and defence domains builds on his earlier work in research, innovation, change management and consultancy. Richard has been extensively involved with MaritimeUK and the Society of Maritime Industries, working in a number of their working groups and leading their futures programme. He has been active in the development of MarRI-UK for a number of years.

He is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects and a Fellow of the IET.